School Finance Adequacy at a Crossroads

In the 1990s, when “school finance adequacy”
began to dominate discussions about school
funding, the idea seemed promising. This
straightforward way of approaching the subject
called for states, as they began to develop curriculum
content and student-performance standards,
to identify the financial resources needed
to get students to meet those standards. Dozens
of adequacy studies were conducted across the
country. They produced encouraging results and
showed potential for moving practice forward.
The studies so far have had limited impact on
state policy and, in the process, two dueling
camps have engaged in an increasingly intense
debate over how to measure and fund an adequate
education.

Peter Lui

One camp—which we call adequacy advocates,
and which includes those using the “professional
judgment” approach to school finance adequacy—argues that adequately funding schools will cost
billions more, even in states like Connecticut and
New York that currently spend far above the national
average. Yet, when states hike school funding,
these adequacy advocates return immediately
to court, seeking more money. A second camp—which we call adequacy critics—argues that school
funding issues have no place in the nation’s courts,
and that there is little science to school-finance-adequacy
analyses.

So what to do? We take a middle road. Our approach
is twofold: First, we review the evidence
from research and best practice on what programs
work in education; and second, we study schools
and districts that have dramatically increased the
level of student performance over a three- to
seven-year period.

Our review of the evidence has uncovered individual
educational strategies that work, and has
informed an evidence-based funding model that
we advocate. These strategies include class sizes
of 15 in grades K-3, school-based instructional
coaches as part of ongoing professional development,
individual and small-group tutoring as the
first intervention for students struggling to meet
academic standards, and other successful practices.
Our studies of schools and districts in four
states—Arkansas, Washington, Wisconsin, and
Wyoming—offer examples of what can be accomplished
when schools and districts put it all together,
and in many cases literally double student
performance on state tests.

Simply finding enough money to adequately fund a state’s schools does not solve the school finance problem.

In addition to deploying resources effectively,
schools that doubled performance engaged in
data-based decisionmaking—making use of both
state-level tests and more curriculum-focused,
formative assessments. They also engaged teachers
in collaborative work centered around the instructional
program, produced a professional
school culture, and had district, school, and
teacher leaders orchestrating all efforts around
improving the academic achievement of every
student. Our studies have indicated that the
types of resources outlined in the evidence-based
funding model we propose are very similar to the
resources used by these successful schools and
districts.

Based on these analyses, we have concluded that
a great deal already is known about how to dramatically
improve schools. While the country
needs more evidence on how to educate all students
to levels that require even more than the
doubling of performance to attain, the current
knowledge base provides a sound foundation for
starting now to move toward that lofty goal.

Our work and findings are widely available. In
a recently published paper, completed for the
School Finance Redesign Project (see www.school
financeredesign.org/pub/pdf/wp2_odden.pdf), we
used national demographic data and national average
prices to cost out our evidence-based model.
The total cost of the model, we found, is close to
the national average expenditure per pupil. This
means that, today, the nation’s investment in
K-12 education is almost enough to adequately
fund an education program that can double student
performance, although states spending
below the average would likely need additional
money for their schools, while those spending
above probably would not. We plan to publish
a second report soon on the cost of this model for
each of the 50 states, and have incorporated the
core of our evidence-based review in a chapter of
the 4th edition of our school finance textbook,
School Finance: A Policy Perspective (McGraw-Hill), which was just published.

Simply finding enough money to adequately
fund a state’s schools does not solve the
school finance problem. An equally difficult
challenge is structuring a school finance
system to support these evidence-based resource allocation
strategies. Today, many state legislators
prefer to rely on “block grants” that defer decisions
on how best to use educational resources
to the professionalism of local educators. Lawmakers
still want to know how the money they
appropriate is used at the school level, however.
Unfortunately, current state and local fiscal-reporting
systems do not provide that information.
Consequently, legislatures in Arkansas and
Wyoming, two states that have enacted school
finance reforms based on our evidence-based model, sought our
help to determine how schools use
the education dollar. Our findings
were somewhat discouraging.

When school districts receive
revenues through a block grant,
local education systems often do
not use the funds to implement
school-based instructional-improvement
strategies that work.
They rarely employ school-based
instructional coaches—the resource
that is key to making professional
development work. Nor
do they use the funds for certificated
tutors to help struggling
students, the most effective early-intervention
program.

Instead, they use resources
to expand the number of elective
classes, particularly in middle
and high schools (and at a
time when student performance
in core subjects such as mathematics,
science, reading, and
writing is both the highest policy
goal and the focus of most
state testing). They also hire
large numbers of instructional
aides, even though the same research
that finds class sizes of 15
work in grades K-3 also shows
that a large class with an instructional
aide does not raise
student performance.

In one state that targeted
money to provide additional services
to students struggling to
meet performance standards, we
found that educators argued for
more local discretion—seeking to
use those resources to increase
teacher salaries, lower class sizes,
or establish preschool programs.
All of these are potentially effective
uses of school resources, but
none of them provides the extra
help struggling students need to
meet state performance standards.
Thus, we now question the
value of providing complete local
discretion as part of a state’s education
reform program.

From these studies, we have
concluded that there are at
least four key aspects of
school finance adequacy
that we would recommend for future
state action:

• Identify what it takes to dramatically
improve student performance.
We believe educators have
sufficient information to be specific
about this, with our evidence-based
model a good summary of
that evidence.

• Cost out those strategies. The
evidence-based model offers a
solid place to start, providing
states with what currently is the
most reasonable adequacy cost
estimate. States would be smart
to start with this level of resources
and make sure this
amount is used effectively before
adding more resources.

• Surround any school finance
reform based on an adequacy
study with a sharp accountability
system. This would hold students,
teachers, schools, and districts appropriately
accountable for results,
so that there is at least
some pressure, other than local
discretion, to use resources for the
most effective strategies.

• Establish some constraints to
ensure that schools use key resources
as part of a strategy
to double student performance.
These resources can include instructional
coaches, tutors, and
formative assessments for data-based
decisionmaking.

We are convinced that applying
these strategies, in combination
with the growing body of evidence
about what works in schools to
improve student learning, would
enable schools and districts to
dramatically improve student
performance over time.

Allan Odden is a professor of educational leadership
and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison school of education. Lawrence O. Picus is a
professor of education finance and policy at the
University of Southern California’s Rossier School of
Education, in Los Angeles.

Vol. 26, Issue 45, Pages 32, 40

Published in Print: August 15, 2007, as School Finance Adequacy at a Crossroads

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.